Charging that Electric Car Could Cost More Than Tank of Gas

[KeiJidosha]

Heck, with Ingineer's L1-to-L2 upgrade, you could charge up at any RV Park, likely for a buck or even free.

More like $5-$20. But priceless in the EVSE wilderness.

Hmmm... could be! Once the RV Parks catch on that, for now, they have a monopoly on the service! I suppose it would depend upon how "green" the individual owner is --perhaps a likely possibility among camping aficionados...?

The cost has more to do with the real estate than the power. At King City, I tie up an 80' pull-thru spot with 50 amp service. Premium turf on a holiday/weekend. The discussion in RV park management is to provide 50amp service to visitor car parking spaces that do not tie up an RV site when parks upgrade their electrical service. This may improve availability and mitigate cost to charge

 

[smkettner]

City of Martinez, CA had a $4 per charge (L2 Coulomb) cost - no matter how long one would stay. Now the city analyst told me that nobody charges and that they have lowered the price down to $2. And my guess is that it will go down even more - hardly anybody will charge unless in an emergency situation.
This will happen to a lot of places that think they will earn big bucks as promised by some charger manufacturers.

A better plan would be to come in low and increase if demand warrents. They should start free or 25 cents. People see $4 and may never return to find the reduced price. Per hour or per kW would seem better as most will not show up empty and stick around 8 hours to get the full $4 value.

 

[scottf200]

I'd pay $4 for L3 QC but L2 just would not be compelling.

I was at a presentation by 350Green and definitely got the impression L2 is the norm. Main reason was most businesses do not have 440v coming in and the infrastructure (transformers) would not support multiple business doing this so the electrical companies wouldn't allow or add it.

I did get the impression that a considerable number of the Walgreens stations would be L3.

I've looked at the Leaf manual in the past about quick charging (L3) and the several spots in the manual would imply it is not something to do regularly persumably because it was not good for the battery. As well not good to charge it all the way up but not likely an issue while you are in WalGreens. First bullet point certainly indicates that.

LI-ION BATTERY LIFE
* Use the normal charging or trickle charging methods to charge the Li-ion battery and minimize the use of public Fast Charge or Quick Charger.
* Avoid exceeding 70-80% state of charge when using frequent (more than once per week) public Fast Charge or Quick Charging.

Quick charge (if so equipped)
NISSAN recommends that quick charging not be performed more than once a day.

Power Limitation Mode
Charging may be automatically terminated, especially with repeated quick charging in extreme hot weather.

HOW TO QUICK CHARGE (if so equipped)
When quick charging, the Li-ion battery charging rate is slower as the percentage available battery charge available increases.

When fully charged
* When 90% of a quick charge is completed

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

interesting point brought up; how do businesses get charged for electricity?

around here, they have lower rates than residential. in fact, much lower. my company employs nearly 1000 people locally and runs over 700 PC's over a secured network to access various client databases. our power needs are huge but we have an industrial rate that is nearly half what the residential rate would be. my 2nd tier rates average just over 9 cents/kwh. but my company's 3rd tier rates run just under 6 cents.

i would find it difficult to believe that Costco would be paying anywhere near 30 cents.

 

[DarkStar]

In the business's defense, we need to keep in mind that some energy companies charge by the amount of electricity used, so a store could easily be paying 30 or more cents a KWH by the end of the month, go look at the rates for Edison tier 5. That is why late night charging costs less - so if you need to charge during peak hours, pay more per mile than gas - you still are going to end up paying less overall, unless this is the only place/time you can charge - which it will never be.

around here, they have lower rates than residential. in fact, much lower. my company employs nearly 1000 people locally and runs over 700 PC's over a secured network to access various client databases. our power needs are huge but we have an industrial rate that is nearly half what the residential rate would be. my 2nd tier rates average just over 9 cents/kwh. but my company's 3rd tier rates run just under 6 cents.

I'm with Dave on this one... I guess this is just different depending on where you live too. In my area, commercial electrical service is cheaper than my residential service, even with me on time-of-use.

 

[Herm]

I was thinking that $4 for a 90 minute L2 charging session works out to about 20 miles of range, and the average midsize car gets about 22 miles on one gallon of gasoline.. so its not too far from normal expenses if gas gets up again to $4 a gallon.

People with 6.6 chargers will make out like bandits

 

[planet4ever]

around here, they have lower rates than residential. in fact, much lower.

I'm with Dave on this one... I guess this is just different depending on where you live too. In my area, commercial electrical service is cheaper than my residential service, even with me on time-of-use.

In northern CA (PG&E) commercial rates are very complicated, but it doesn't look like anybody gets off cheaply. There are four different rate schedules which PG&E shuffles the businesses among depending on their maximum load.

If they never (or rarely) use more than 200 kW at a time they are going to pay around $0.15/kWh in the six "winter" months and $0.20/kWh in the six "summer" months. I think this might roughly correspond to 1000A service, and I'm sure a big box store like Costco is way above this.

On the other end of the scale, if their load occasionally goes over 1000 kW they end up paying by time of day plus a hefty surcharge based on the maximum load. The rates per kWh are a lot better, 8 to 10 cents except 14 cents noon to 6 PM Monday to Friday. But then PG&E adds $9.44 times max load (meaning at least $9,440/month) plus $12.80 times max summer noon-6PM load (probably another $12,800/month or more) plus smaller amounts for max partial peak loads.

If, for example, the max load is 1200 kW and the min load is 200 kW and the store is open 12 hours a day, they might pay a $22,000/mo load charge (averaged summer/winter) for about 520 mWh. That would effectively add $0.0423 to their per kWh charge, putting them somewhere around 14 cents on average.

Bottom line: Most commercial businesses in PG&E territory are probably paying an average of 14 to 18 cents/kWh.

Ray

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Wow thanks for that!.

Makes me wonder what the bebfits could be for off peak load balancing. Many businesses are shutdown at night. Now if they were to get large stoarge onsite that would charge at night at much cheaper off peak rates.... might be something a big industrial user might investigate

 

[camasleaf]

Any utility that pretends to support EVs, should allow businesses to install a separate meter for the EVSE and charge EV rates. This way the EV power does not impact the business regular rates. Is the cost of the additional meter so high compared to a L3 EVSE?

 

[walterbays]

Any utility that pretends to support EVs, should allow businesses to install a separate meter for the EVSE and charge EV rates. This way the EV power does not impact the business regular rates. Is the cost of the additional meter so high compared to a L3 EVSE?

I'm not sure even that would be quite enough. Around here peak daytime EV rates are higher than non-TOU commercial rates.

But you're exactly right to think of what it is the utility is trying to accomplish: to increase the number of EV's, and to persuade those EV drivers to do the great majority of their charging overnight. With a poor public recharging infrastructure there will not be many EV's. If the utility could avoid punitive rates discouraging businesses from installing recharging stations, then they could increase the total number of EV's.

Also, with no significant L3 quick charge infrastructure, then prudent EV drivers will tend to top up their charge wherever and whenever they can. I.e., go ahead and fill up from 55% to 100% in the middle of the day even though there is a 9 in 10 chance you will not need more than 40% more. But if instead you have the possibility to top up at a quick charge station in the rare event that you need it, then you can complacently pass up the peak hour charging. If the utility gives businesses a good daytime rate for L3, so that the retail rate to drivers is no higher than the cost of gasoline, then just the possibility of that recharging can help shift total recharging load towards the middle of the night. And of course L3 recharging stations will greatly accelerate adoption of EV's by mostly removing range anxiety as a factor.

 

[rpmdk]

Earlier in the thread I speculated that in 5 - 10 years the charging infrastructure won't be nearly as important with battery capacity increases. I'm rethinking the whole notion of a charging infrastructure - with larger batteries most people will only need to charge at home.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Earlier in the thread I speculated that in 5 - 10 years the charging infrastructure won't be nearly as important with battery capacity increases. I'm rethinking the whole notion of a charging infrastructure - with larger batteries most people will only need to charge at home.

So how big of a gas tank would u need then? 1000 miles would allow u no more than a 500 mile round trip
.
The same goes for an EV. until they come up with a 6,000 battery that would allow me to go coast to coast a public charging structure would be needed

 

[ChipsLeaf]

I work in the Bay Area and wanted to use the 120 Volt outlets on the outside of the building where I work. I asked our finance person to see what rates the company paid to PG&E. She got out the past billing statements and it was 8.5 or 9.5 cents/kWh depending on various factors (don't recall if it was seasonal or what). I figured my usage would be less than a dollar a day, less than the other perks of free sodas, teas, coffees.

I have read lots of statements on this Board about rates and they seem to vary dramatically - some of that is because people pay much different rates in different states and the residential tiered rates can be very punishing. I found it interesting to see what the average residential, commercial and industrial user pays for electricity in each state. In California through April 2011 the averages rates were: 14.9 cents/kWh (residential), 12.4 (commercial), 9.0 (industrial) and 8.0 (transportation). It looks like the state of Washington has one of the cheapest average rates: 8.1, 7.5, 5.4, and 8.5 cents/kWh, respectively. Idaho is even lower. Hawaii has the highest average rates.

See the last page on this document: http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/chap5.pdf

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

back when i was plugging in my Zenn at work, i asked about the rates and if my company used AT LEAST a certain amount ( i think it was 750,000 +) they got a preferred rate that ran about 4½ cents. they had 4 main feeder lines that ran $1500 a month each. if they used like (not sure about the #'s) 250,000-750,000 it was like 6½ and under 250,000 it was like 5¼ cents.

not sure of the amounts, but did remember the middle usage range was highest.

 

[KeiJidosha]

A new business model. Think of public charging as a vending machine;

“When you go into a supermarket, you get a can of Coke for 50 cents, but when you go to a machine in public, it might cost you $2. We’re used to that,” he said. “You’re paying for that Coke to be cold and available to you.”

http://www.plugincars.com/race-lock-down-electric-car-charging-real-estate-107633.html

Car Charging Group, "securing rights to some of the best parking real estate in the United States"

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

A new business model. Think of public charging as a vending machine;

“When you go into a supermarket, you get a can of Coke for 50 cents, but when you go to a machine in public, it might cost you $2. We’re used to that,” he said. “You’re paying for that Coke to be cold and available to you.”

http://www.plugincars.com/race-lock-down-electric-car-charging-real-estate-107633.html

Car Charging Group, "securing rights to some of the best parking real estate in the United States"

great analogy and yes many will pay a premium for convenience and location, but i personally only buy gas at Costco because of the discount i receive. now, normally it is not that much of a chore because it is on my way to work so just a little detour (about 200 yards but generally takes 10-20 minutes due to the traffic!!) but have done some NAV searches when out of town before to find a Costco (which are not plentiful or non-existent in a lot of the areas we go)

and i dont see me paying that much for the "convenience" since its unlikely i would need it to get home. i use Walgren's all the time, but most of it is the drive thru window...

 

[smkettner]

A new business model. Think of public charging as a vending machine;

“When you go into a supermarket, you get a can of Coke for 50 cents, but when you go to a machine in public, it might cost you $2. We’re used to that,” he said. “You’re paying for that Coke to be cold and available to you.”

http://www.plugincars.com/race-lock-down-electric-car-charging-real-estate-107633.html

Car Charging Group, "securing rights to some of the best parking real estate in the United States"

If this pay for premium parking catches on the real market will be parking meters for all cars in the closest 10% of spaces. I think most will just get a little more excercise. I personally would far prefer free charging 2/3rds or more to the back in the lot as opposed to pay for front row to get charging.

 

[ericsf]

Last week I had an e-mail exchange with a hotel in the Bay Area where they had just installed 2 ChargePoint stations.

I sent an e-mail to thank them for their investment in the EV infrastructure but I also pointed out that the rate they had chosen ($5 per hour) was outrageously expensive.

To my surprise, they got back to me and said they were considering lowering the price to $2 per hour and asked me if I tough this was a fair cost.

I replied that $2 per hour was of course better than $5 but I also explained that a better way to bill would be per KWh used rather than time. You guys all understand why. No need to go there.

Their answer was interesting. They said that they discussed that option with Coulomb. Coulomb told them that they cannot charge by KWh because of a law (no details) that says that only Public Utilities can do that. That's why they bill by the time spent and not amount of electricity used. They also mentioned that there was some lobbying going on to repeal this law.

Does anybody know anything about that? Does this law really exists? If yes, who's lobbying? Can we help?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

was doing a charge station survey for pluginamerica.org and one place in downtown Oly, charging was free but parking was $1.50 an hour and that goes for all cars. so $2 an hour in San Francisco?? sounds like a bargain to me

 

[Norway]

The Status in Oslo, Norway:

We now have over 400 new totally free charging places (230 V 16 A 3.6 kW), all provided by the city council. Both parking and charging is free.

The council pays up to $1600 for companies and residential associations to provide charging places.

Electric cars park free in ALL normal street parking, too.

50% (!) of ALL street parking in the centre of Oslo will be reserved for electric cars within a year.

Electric cars can drive in the bus lanes.

Electric cars are excempt for all tolls and go free on ferries.

Electric cars do not pay annual car tax of $400.

Electric cars have no registration duty/tax (can be up to 180% for fossil cars) and no sales tax (25% for fossil cars)



Norway is quite a nice place for electric car owners!